Project “Face to Face with Local Administration” starts from Kopaonik

Training „Face to Face with Local Administration” took place, as the first in a series of activities, at Kopaonik mountain, in organization of Development Centre for Youth and the Municipality of Raška.

In the introductory part, participants were welcomed by Slobodan Ristović, Secretary of the Municipal Assembly of Raška and Aleksandra Knežević, program director of Development Centre for Youth.

During the training, 20 young people learnt about the importance of youth participation in life of local community and available mechanisms to influence processes in the community, to highlight their interests and priorities as significant and to pay due attention to them.

– Young people are full of ideas on how to enrich cultural and sports activities for youth in Raška; they want to make the situation in their neighbourhood better; consider themselves surrounded by quality young people who they would like to see in the Municipal Assembly. However, in order for the voice of young people to really be heard, it is important that they act as active citizens and use all mechanisms of influence available to them – said Aleksandra Knežević at opening of the training.

Training is only the first step in introducing the youth of Raška municipality to the functioning of local administration, as it will be followed by peer workshops with elementary and high school students of this municipality, and a number of other dynamic activities.

– Through this project, it is very important for us to prepare young people for peer educators who will later transfer knowledge to younger generations of scholars in order to break unjustified prejudices, as well as to build a bridge between citizens and local self-government in order to use existing mechanisms – explained Slobodan Ristović in addressing the participants.